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Amazing Race episode 6 recap: Karma stings for mother-daughter pair

Hah! Karma stings. The fates have seen fit to restore balance to The Amazing Race universe. You get what you deserve — reap what you sow — and one misfortune will beget another.

Shelley and Nici Porter, a mother-and-daughter pair from Detroit, were the only team to force a U-Turn — essentially an additional challenge — upon another in last week’s episode. It was a vengeful move done without a strategic thought, and now, the Porters share the fate of their victims last week.

In Friday’s episode, Shelley and Nici ended up last and were eliminated, something apparent right from the start.

The sixth episode takes place again in Morocco in northern Africa. It starts with the seven teams left in the race finding the location where some hay is kept and then delivering two bags.

While most teams took taxis and had no problems finding the place — which was about 10 kilometres away — three of the teams, Shelley and Nici included, tried to walk and ended up lost.

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As they hopelessly wandered around the city, many of the other teams delivered the hay and completed the rest of the challenge — riding a horse-drawn carriage — and were ready to take on the Detour.

In the Detour, teams have two choices: set up a traditional Berber tent to its exact specifications or make three ounces of goat butter from scratch.

Kym Perfetto and Alli Forsythe, urban bike racers from New York, had been in first place for two weeks, though they eventually lost the lead to Misti and Jim Raman, married dentists from Columbia, S.C., who were eager to rise above their sixth-place finish last episode.

The teams chose different challenges, with Kym and Alli deciding to make butter, a process that begins with milking goats. After that, the milk is poured into an animal skin bag that has to be then shaken for about 45 minutes.

Kym and Alli decided that it was too hard and changed challenges, sacrificing their lead and joining the dentists at building tents, an activity they would find is not much easier.

There were not a lot of instructions provided for the tents — large canvass draped over wooden frames — and much of what the teams were doing was a result of trial and error.

Within minutes and after what appeared to be the first signs of an argument between an otherwise amicable pair, the bikers returned to making butter.

The dentists swiftly completed their challenge, leaving right at the arrival of Tim Tsao and Te Jay McGrath, college sweethearts from Pasadena, Calif., a team that is lucky to have gotten as far as it had.

You might remember Tim and Te Jay from the ridiculous "barrier of clothing" they set up in an effort to herd sheep. In what was easily the funniest moment of the season so far, Tim and Te Jay took off pieces of their clothing and tied them together in a line. It made them look stupid, wasted time and, most importantly, didn’t work as the sheep effortlessly jumped over the line.

And they also tried to "baa" at the sheep.

But, of course, Tim and Te Jay were well ahead of Shelly and Nici, who at that moment were lost, still trying to find the place for the Detour.

They only arrived at the butter-making station as everybody was leaving.

Meanwhile, the dentists arrived at the Roadblock, a challenge that only one of them has to complete. This Roadblock consists of a series of high-rise challenges — crossing wires and zip-lining across a vast valley — and then solving a wooden puzzle.

It was not hard for most contestants, with the exception of Brooke Adams — a professional wrestler from Houston, partner of Robbie E. Strauss from Woodbridge, N.J., also a professional wrestler — who cannot figure out the puzzle.

Brooke was stuck at that station for so long that Maya Warren — a food scientist from Madison, Wisc., teaming up with her colleague, Amy DeJong — had caught up with her.

And expectedly, Shelley and Nici arrived at the Roadblock when every other team had completed it. But according to host Phil Keoghan, there was one positive thing to all that — the mother-and-daughter pair arrived at the finish point holding hands, a sign of a mended relationship.

In an earlier episode, Shelley and Nici had a major falling out. At one point, Shelley kept quiet about Nici driving in the wrong direction in a bid to teach her a lesson, potentially resulting in elimination. That is almost exactly in line with the team’s actions last episode — feverishly righting a personal slight and missing out on the bigger picture.

It’s thus heartening to see the mother and daughter pair grow closer. They’ve learned a lesson from at least one of those incidents.

As for the rest of the teams, Tim and Te Jay need to work harder. Throughout the season, they’ve seemed to get by through sheer luck and the follies of others.

And much of what they say are complaints about how heavy or how confusing things are, including this gem, "I’ve never pushed myself so hard physically," uttered when the episode just began and when none of them had done anything yet.

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